You all know Rosalind Wiseman right? The New York Times Bestselling writer who’s book Queen Bees and Wannabes inspired your favourite ever film Mean Girls? Nope OK, well the bottom line is that without Rosalind, Tina Fey wouldn’t have made the most seminal teen film of all time ever.
Written back in 2002,* Queen Bees and Wannabes* was a self-help book for parents that looked at the way girls formed cliques, conducted their relationships and how they expressed themselves. Now, 12 years on from writing the book Rosalind says that rather than ‘mean girl’ behaviour improving, she’s noticing it in younger girls than ever.
READ MORE: Why Mean Girls Was Cleverer Than Any Stupid Teacher You Had At School
‘Mainstream media is portraying girls at younger ages who are mimicking the worst of obnoxious, stereotypical girl behaviour… Rolling eyes, moving the hips around, being catty,’ Rosalind said to CNN. ‘So what girls are getting is that by 8 or 9, this is sort of a 'normal' way to act.’
Citing Real Housewives as an example, Rosalind says it’s problematic when daughters, ‘walk in the house and see that what you entertain yourself with is watching other women be mean to each other or be ridiculed or dismissed. You are showing that that's entertaining to you and then it normalises it.’
Rosalind, who's now written a similar book taking a look at the way boys behave entitled Masterminds and Wingmen, says the difference between how we educate boys and girls socially is crucial, ‘We say boys are easy and girls are hard, girls are back-stabbing, nasty, all that kind of stuff, and what that means is we're basically saying: “Well, your legacy, girls, is to grow up and be back-stabbing and not have women or girls that you can trust as friends.”’
READ MORE: My Experience Of Teenage Bullies Still Haunts Me Today
Unfortunately, though, Rosalind says that rather than combatting the behaviour, you need to teach girls to deal with it. ‘Here's what I say to parents: "You cannot prevent conflict. You cannot prevent all mean girl problems that your daughter is going to have. You cannot. What you can do is teach your child that conflict is inevitable and they need to learn how to manage that."’
Depressed much? Us too. Here's a clip of Amy Poehler being exactly the kind of mom that creates a Mean Girl to cheer you up.
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Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.